John Arlott lived in Alderney. One of his visitors was Ian Botham who partook of his wine cellar!
I agree, today's commentators are bland but isn't that to do with the general "dumbing down". Michael Vaughan poor. Carlos Brathwaite very good when introducing the Shipping Forecast. Various former Indian players also make worthwhile contributions. Alison Mitchell is very knowledgeable, same goes for Ebony Rainford-Brent. Some may not agree but I miss Geoffrey Boycott. His bluntness getting up some people's noses but knows his subject.
Wasn't it something that started after Ray Stevens' song "The Streak". Maybe just a coincidence. It could have been his own take.
For me the best tv commentator of them all was Richie Benaud. He was so astute and spoke with the the background of captaining Australia. He was also a trained journalist and tv presenter. Many times he would say, "Just let's have a look at that again". He had spotted something 'live' that was difficult to see even in a slow motion replay, such was his knowledge and feel for the game.
From its inception Test Match Special has followed a policy of having a commentator and expert alongside. In the early days the commentators were the likes of John Arlott, Rex Alston and Robert Hudson with Norman Yardley one of the experts.
Perhaps the heyday of TMS was the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s when legendary commentators in the form of Arlott, Brian Johnston, Don Mosey, Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Henry Blofeld held centre stage supported by experts in the form of Fred Truman and Trevor Bailey and, as now (at least pre-pandemic), they were joined by an overseas commentator from the the visiting test team's country with the immensely knowledgeable Tony Cozier (West Indies) and the grumpy Alan McGilvray (Australia) perhaps two of the best remembered.
The expert, always a former test player, was there to give an insight from the players' perspective having experienced the game at that level at first hand. Some were better at communicating than others. Nowadays the rationale has undergone a subtle change with Rainsford-Brent and Isa Guha sometimes filling in the role as expert. Obviously they can't speak from first-hand knowledge about facing 95 mph bowling or what it's like trying to stop a Stokes cover drive because they would not have encountered such things in their test cricket. That said Guha (especially) is a good communicator and both women know their way around cricket as does commentator Alison Mitchell.
A couple of the current bog standard TMS male commentators - I don't even know their names - have no personality, poor descriptive skills and are not likely to entice non-cricketing people to take an interest in the game, which wasn't the case in the days of Arlott and Johnston. In those days it was said that listening to TMS was like going to a cricket match with a group of friends. The commentators and experts would take the mickey out of each other, which they have to be careful about doing these days, and generally put across their great enthusiasm. These days everything is so packaged and sterile.
